The unemployment rate across the US and the EU in January 2023. The US average unemployment rate is 3.5%. The EU average unemployment rate is 6.1%

31 comments

  2. Hungarian here. Our unemployment rate is a lie. Unemployed people can work as “community workers” (sweep the streets, garbage-pick, sleep on benches) so they no longer count as unemployed. We call this “hidden unemoloyment”. Also the ridiculous amount of money they get, is not counted in statistics, so the hungarian avearge salary look good …statistically.

  3. For people wondering, the difference between USA and EU:

    [Employment rate EU v USA for ages 15-64](https://data.oecd.org/emp/employment-rate.htm)|EU: 69.9, USA: 71.4

    [Employment rate EU v USA by age group](https://data.oecd.org/emp/employment-rate-by-age-group.htm#indicator-chart)

    15-24 | EU: 34.7, USA: 51.0

    24-54 | EU: 81.9, USA: 79.9

    55-64 | EU: 62.6, USA: 63.7

    I’ve heard lots of “good” things about labor laws on USA. I hear the lead on underage employment is going to get ever wider!

  5. Why there is US overseas territories but not EU ones ?

    Also theses employment rate topics are hard to appreciate on some Countries Some work contract are illegal and yet deemed ”acceptable” on others and considered as “jobs”.

    There are also ways to downplay the numbers of unemployed people by removing them from Stats by treating these unemployed people as being in training, training that will lead to edither no jobs or poor jobs.

  6. In hungary, everyone has a job, the way we achieve this is pretty smart, its called not paying enough so you can hire more employees

  10. These stats can be skewed obviously, but I do hope this charts help Europeans understand that America isn’t the hellhole it’s sometime portrayed. Also, America doesn’t have all the safety nets Europe does, but we do have a lot. People are able to collect unemployment and many jobs have severance packages.
    Combine this with the average pay chart and you can see why America is still doing okay. This is not to say we are doing any better or worse then European countries, just that we do have our strengths that seems to get forgotten on Reddit.

  11. I’m just here for the copium since this is r/Europe and users here cannot tolerate a statistic showing the US being better than them

  12. US job market has been amazing recently. Big worker shortage has meant sizable rises in wages, benefits and unionization. I feel like we are entering a new age for a rising middle class revival. Really happy with how it’s going right now tbh

    like the Burger King near my house has a sign that says $17 starting salary. Which is a huge increase to what it was just a few years ago

  13. Romanian here, our unemployment rate has almost always been around 5 to 6 %, for the last 20 years. I think it was higher during the recession, but otherwise it’s always been around that.

  15. Not a great statistic. At least in Norway you have to not have a job and be a registered active job seeker to be counted as unemployed (3.4% currently). If you have no job and also is not registered then you are counted as being outside the work force (30.3% currently). Both statistics count people 15-74.

  17. Does the unemployment rate take into account the entrepreneurs or people running their own businesses? It would be interesting to see the rate of employees, entrepreneurs, and unemployed.

  19. And many of these “employed” Americans are even have doing 2 jobs!!, while still living from paycheck to paycheck.

    Welcome to the land of the free, home of the brave.

  20. We all measure unemployment in different ways. So im not sure how correct this is.

    In Denmark you are only a part of unemployment stats if you go file for unemployment benefits.

  22. is this comparable?

    1.) it is recorded in the same way

    2) in the USA you only receive unemployment benefits for a certain period of time, as soon as you are over it there is no reason to be registered there anymore, is there?

  23. Not really comparable. Every country counts their employment rates differently and classifications of what constitutes as unemployed vary wildly.

  25. In Bulgaria unemployment virtually doesn’t exist. The vast majority of these 3.6% work on the black labour market.

    To top it all off, since we are one of the fastest aging countries in the world most places pay a pretty good salary, because it’s hard to find employees that aren’t one foot in the grave. So we are pretty well paid, despite what some of my fellow countrymen would say. But we like to complain.

  27. Hasn’t unemployement decreased as a whole in the EU ? Like those are some of the lowest numbers overall ? Or is it just France’s situation ?

  30. Do all of these numbers use the same metric? Or are those taken from the local governments at face value?

    Since gov’ts typically skew the numbers to appear better.

    For example someone who has a 20 hour part time job counts as employed, though they are usually not making a living wage. Similarly, people who gave up and are not registered are not counted either.

  31. My question is the unemployment rate determined the same way as the USA only counts them as unemployed the first 6 mos after job loss if I recall….

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